Young Writers Society

11,000 pounds of bacon per week,
a pound per BLT.

At Tony's I see fat families,
herds of them waddling
to their tables as fast as their dimply legs
will let them.

Bacon! They order bacon,
burgers, chili fries, steak,
and even the low-calorie meals are so huge
that it renders the calorie-counting useless.

No wonder so much of the world is starving.
No wonder America is fat.

At least, I think,
as I load my unfinished turkey sandwich
and mashed potatoes into a Styrofoam box,
at least I tomorrow I will have a lunch
and dinner too.

White drifts down upon the grass like
magnolia petals or cottonwood seeds
in April but cold and damp:
A snow shower thirty days
after the equinox.

Welcome to Michigan.

Once we danced upon waves of concrete,
the sidewalk beside CVS without
music and ignoring the bemused smiles
of passersby. I sat on your lap
in the seat of a rusty black truck,
manual transmission, and clung to you
in delicious terror as Aubrey drove
(badly as usual) and you wrapped your arms
about my waist.

Now the ocean in my eyes stretches
like the one between us,
far and wide but not as deep,
and slowly diminishes until all that is left
is the blinding salt
and finally nothing.
The sun vanishes below the curve
of the earth and I turn my eyes instead
to the stars.

A paper plane makes its path
across the room, its passenger a picture
of you as a vulture, squawking
at the teenagers. You ignore it,
as you have ignored the drawings
on the blackboard, ignored
the notes on your desk and the tacks
you remove daily from your chair, ignored
as you have been by your students
all year, it seems, they have been learning
nothing despite your efforts,
your attempted enthusiasm.

On the last day of school, Irene,
the girl in back who looks like a novice hooker
or a coke fiend,
Irene who flips her hair like a model, raises
her hand and asks in the voice of a Valley girl,
"Are you coming back next year?"
Equally snotty, you answer,
"If I don't get fired," and she leans back
in her chair and folds her arms
and says,
"Good."
Apparently, they like you. Who knew?
Congratulations--you survived
your first year as a teacher.

Extra extra, read all about it!
"Beauty gives birth to hairy child,
Beast thrilled!"

Extra extra, a nickel per newspaper!
Look at this story!
"Red Riding Hood and Grandma
open zoo in memory of Wolf!"

Extra extra - hey, citizen,
won'tcha buy a paper?
"Giant sues Jack for trespassing!"

Extra extra - oof! Hey!
Stop punching me!
I'm just doing my - ouch! - job!

Extra extra, read all about it!
"Irritating newsboy beaten by mob,
exclusive inside!"

Whispering tickled soft breath in my ears
and on my neck and skin everywhere but I
only shiver,
thinking of flocks of joyful birds that erupted
in my chest and broke free.

Pale powder paints a mask over
a paler face thick with freckles
pink with dust instead now
like a china doll forgotten on the mantle.

Greens and golds for green eyes
sparkling in the mirror as they
look at themselves with
a tip-tilted smile and go wide
to meet their black liquid lashes

and then the pink curves
that went so wide too thin and flatten
and mimic the red of a blackbird's
wing when he's come back north
after the snows have gone.

blood running down
the stairs in the
sky like rain from
Jupiter falling down
the stairs in the
dark like her face
is beautiful but
she sees that she
is fat with
ribs poking out
through her sides
like love handles
that she has when
she looks in the
pond where she
walks with hands
out-stretched like
fins but she's not
a fish so she
drowns in her own
ugliness because
she can't see how
beautiful she is.

A crash of thunder overhead
wakes her up in the middle of the
living room where
they're sleeping together on
an air-mattress two days
before Easter.

Darkness seeps in through the
rain-drizzled windows and
the collie comes trembling
to be comforted and
the mattress creaks
because it's new

and at her back she feels
his back and hears him
snoring like the thunder
outside and she can't fall back
asleep but still the night is
perfect.

Poet's block: This is
what I get for trying to
take up the Challenge.

when you are engulfed in
rain it is no mood for
deconstruction so you
help kill the rainforest for
which you are given
an A and then you find
a couch where you can
curl up and cry

You cling to the innards of my womb, wrapped in
blood and placenta, protected from the world by my
skin and love and cracking bones.

I feel your future in my belly as
the world caves in around me - Detroit crumbles
before my eyes and flames devour Libya and
other near and distant deserts that remain
unnamed because they are not the fabled
Fountains of Oil.

I feel your future in my belly and I want it there,
but my arms clasp round my roundness
the way yours would if you escaped me.

My child, stay there.

See how my hands clutch my belly now,
as they do any time I watch the news or hear
the rumors flying like crows from tree to naked tree.
I love you already.
I am selfish enough to want you here:
To touch your soft skin, your peach-fuzz hair,
and tickle with my lips the tiny hands and feet
and see the smile in your blue eyes whenever I draw near.

But in front of me I can see the world
and how it would wrinkle and callous your smooth skin.
I love you, and I think perhaps I should leave you be.

For two years they were like
Oreos and milk. After high school
he went away to school in Ann Arbor.

When they finished work on weekends
they would call each other and talk
on the phone until the stars
grew old, and sometimes
she would visit him at school
and sleep beside him on the
crappy college bed in his dorm room.

He never slept, though:
just watched her chest rise and fall
as she slept, afraid to put his hands
somewhere unwelcome, afraid
to touch her at all, even though

he wanted to.

When her wisdom teeth were pulled,
he borrowed a car from a guy
on his floor and drove back north
to see her and feed her ice cream
and rub her back and sing to her
until she fell asleep.

When his mother died,
he called her at six a.m. and woke up
her boyfriend.
But she cried with him anyway.

He never said anything.

She went to school in Pennsylvania.
She dated. He dated.
She fell in love.
She got engaged.

He never said anything.

He stood up in her wedding.
She kissed his cheek at the reception.
She and her husband flew away.
He went back to Michigan.

Now they are more like
Coke and Pepsi.

For a year I remembered.
I breathed you, saw you,
heard your accent in my head
when others heard only American voices.

I captured you in shades of blue,
darker here, lighter here,
as in my heart.
I poured the water of my being
onto canvas. My heart was the pitcher,
my hand the mouth, and from them
flowed every vision of love
that had ever danced with me.

I worked for weeks, and when I was done
I admired and then grew afraid.
Without such work to do,
I did nothing. I twisted my hands
and wandered the corridors
and looked and looked--
but I found nothing new
in your likeness.

You never saw our children.

Our daughter ran shrieking to see you
every night when you came home from work,
but you told her not to jump on you.
You were tired.
Our son begged you to play catch with him
each sunny weekend afternoon,
but you told him maybe later.
You were busy.

You missed so much.

You were not there for our daughter's
first steps, nor even for our son's birth.

I held my mother's hand, not yours,
as I struggled and sweated and groaned and pushed,
and when he appeared, slick and wailing,
you were not there to share in my joy,
which took on a bitter taste.

Blood pooled around my legs,
and still you were not there.

I cried when I told you the news,
that we could have no more children,
but you looked so worn and threadbare and thin
that I could not bring myself to blame you.

Our children never knew you.

I watched them grow in the garden,
amidst the daffodils and bleeding hearts
and the dead leaves in Autumn--
but you never saw them.

Now they are grown, and all that I am left with is
a shell, a silent ghost.

That's all you are now,
and I am invisible as well:

like our children.